Eric K.
Yelp
I can't believe I found an authentic Chinese hotpot joint in... MIAMI?!?
Wife and I were in need of some comfort food (e.g. soup) after a day of boating & snorkeling which can make you a bit queasy, and we stumbled upon this unlikely place, and so fortunate we were!
Having eaten at the most authentic hotpot places in Beijing, et al. I can tell you that DTZW is legit. Not only did they have fresh ingredient & multiple soup styles to choose from (beef, chicken, mushroom, herbal, etc. it was great!), they also had a nice dipping sauce bar with soy sauce, oyster sauce, XO sauce, chili oil, cilantro, scallions, sesame sauce, etc. I created my awesome sauce (seen in pic below), one for veggie and one for meat.
We ordered the beef broth and for veggie, we got the veggie combo and king trumpet mushroom. The combo gives you a pretty good portion of varied veggies so I recommend that. For protein, we got fatty beef (a must for hotpots in my opinion), their outstanding shrimp ball (they handcraft all their meatballs), fillet of flounder, and dried bean curd. All were good but I especially enjoyed the shrimp balls and flounder. We really enjoyed dipping these fresh ingredients into my dipping sauces!
Also - don't forget to get the noodles! We got the ramen noodles and they were just the right amount of chewy & sauce-absorption action that filled out stomach with goodness. Tip - don't get the potato? noodle - that's the slippery and clear stuff which isn't as chewy nor soup-absorbing, unless that's your thang.
The wonder doesn't end there - I really wanted to order a Ganguo (a dry hotpot) to eat with a rice and they actually had it. I think I got the beef one out of a few choices they offered, and it was DA BOMB! Beef, lotus roots, broccoli.. everything was so well-seasoned in the delectable soy & mala based seasoning, every veggie so crunchy, it was a JOY to eat with the fly-off-the-bowl rice. Obviously, this was too much food for 1 seating, so guess what - we actually took home 60% of the dry hotpot and ATE IT COLD IN OUR HOTEL FOR BREAKFAST THE NEXT DAY. (Room didn't have a microwave, so we boiled a green tea to go w/ it) It stayed fresh in AC'd room temp overnight and we literally couldn't believe how good this dish was the morning after, cold. (Ok, you got it now right? Do I need to go on?)
After dinner accompanied by cold bottle of Kirin, we were so satisfied with that great comforting feeling that only your comfort food can give you. Rumor is that we did have to walk for 20 min to digest all that we had cuz we did eat a lot.
I invite all diners, even ones not familiar with Chinese hotpot, to try this place - esp. if all you've been eating are latin/cuban food & american fare that tend to be fried/greasy. You'll thank me later.
Highly recommended - a gem in Brickel!